Unfortunately, because they cannot be cast or machined easily, ceramic parts are generally more difficult to process compared to polymers or metals.

However, a new approach for producing ceramics using additive manufacturing overcomes the traditional limitations on ceramic processing.

3D Printing Ceramics

Ceramic parts are traditionally consolidated from powders by sintering. This inevitably leaves residual porosity in the parts, limiting their strength as well as their range of achievable final shapes.

The new approach utilizes a preceramic monomer resin which can be 3D-printed into parts of virtually any shape or size. Using a laser to raster the geometry of a part in the resin cures that portion of the resin into a polymer. Once cured, the resin is then fired to yield the final product: a high-strength, fully dense ceramic part.

A silicon oxycarbide microlattice fabricated using this process exhibited ten times the strength of similar ceramic materials. It can also withstand temperatures in excess of 1700°C (3092°F).

"With our new 3D printing process, we can take full advantage of the many desirable properties of this silicon oxycarbide ceramic, including high hardness, strength and temperature capability as well as resistance to abrasion and corrosion," said Dr. Tobias Schaedler, program manager at HRL Laboratories.

Check out the video below to see just how tough these 3D-printed ceramics are:

Applications for 3D-Printed Ceramics

Schaedler and his colleagues envision applications for their process in the aerospace, electronics and packaging industries.

At this point the most salient concerns are those regarding quantity rather than quality. The promotional video for the process mentions that it can take anywhere from several hours to several days to complete. The company also hints that it could substantially reduce that time, which would be crucial to integrating this process into manufacturing on an industrial scale.